Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

APRIL 27, 1986

Mrs. Threadgoode was especially happy today because she had fried chicken and coleslaw on a paper plate, and Evelyn was down the hall at this very minute, getting her a grape drink to go with it.

“Oh thank you, honey. You’re spoiling me, bringing me all these treats each week. I told Mrs. Otis, I said that Evelyn couldn’t be any sweeter to me if she was my own daughter … and I appreciate it so much—I never had a daughter of my own.… Does your mother-in-law enjoy good things to eat?”

Evelyn said, “No, not at all. I brought her some chicken, but she didn’t want it. She or Ed could care less about food, they just eat to keep alive. Can you imagine?”

Mrs. Threadgoode said she certainly could not imagine such a thing.

Evelyn started her off. “Now, Ruth left Whistle Stop and went off to Valdosta to get married …”

“That’s right. Oh, and it liked to have killed Idgie. She pitched such a fit.”

“I know, you told me about that. But what I want to know is, when did Ruth come back to Whistle Stop?”

Evelyn settled in her chair, ate her chicken, and listened.

“Oh yes, honey, I remember the very day that letter came. It must have been in ’twenty-eight or ’twenty-nine. Or was it ’thirty? Oh well.… I was in the kitchen with Sipsey when Momma came running back in with it in her hand. She threw open the back door and hollered for Big George, who was out in the garden with Jasper and Artis. She said, ‘George, go get Idgie right away and tell her she’s got a letter from Miss Ruth!’

“George took off running to get her. About an hour later, Idgie came into the kitchen. Momma, who was shelling peas at the time, just pointed to the letter on the table, without a word. Idgie opened it, but the funny thing was, it wasn’t a letter at all.

“It was just a page torn out of the Bible, King James Version. Ruth 1:16–20:

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

“Idgie just stood there, reading that quotation over and over and then she handed it to Momma and asked her what she thought it meant.

“Momma read it, put it down on the table, and continued shelling her peas. She said, ‘Well, honey, it means just what it says. I think tomorrow you and your brothers and Big George better go over there and get that girl, don’t you? You know you’re not going to be fit to live with till you do. You know that.’

“And it was true. She wouldn’t have been.

“So the next day, they went over to Georgia and got her.

“I admired Ruth for having the courage to walk away like that. It took real courage in those days, not like today, honey. Back then, if you were married, you stayed married. But she was a lot stronger than people knew. Everybody was always treating Ruth like a china doll, but you know, she was a lot stronger than Idgie in many ways.”

“Did Ruth ever get a divorce?”

“Oh, I don’t know that. That’s something I never asked. I just figured that was Ruth’s business. I never met her husband, but they say that he was handsome, all except that glass eye. Ruth told me he had come from a nice family, but just had a mean streak where women were concerned. Said on their wedding night, he got drunk and forced her, while the whole time she was begging him to stop.”

“How awful.”

“Yes, it was. She bled for three days, and after that, she never could relax and enjoy herself. And, of course, that just made him madder. And she said he kicked her down a flight of stairs once.”

“Good Lord!”

“Then he started forcing himself on the poor colored girls he had working for him. Ruth said one little girl was only twelve years old. But by the time she found out what kind of a man he was, it was too late. Ruth’s mother was sick, and she couldn’t leave. She said that on the nights he would come home mean and drunk and force her, she’d lie there and pray to God and think about us to keep herself from going crazy.”

Evelyn said, “They say you never know a man until you live with him.”

“That’s right. Sipsey used to say, ‘You never know what kind of fish you’ve got till you pull it out of the water’—so it’s best that Stump never met his daddy. Ruth left before he was born. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even know she was pregnant at the time. She’d been over there with Idgie about two months before she noticed that her stomach was just a-pooching out. Went to the doctor and found out she was expecting. He was born over at the big house, and he was the cutest little blond baby, weighed seven pounds and had brown eyes and blond hair.

“Momma said, the first time she saw him, ‘Oh look, Idgie, he’s got your hair!’

“And he did. He was just as blond as could be. That’s when Poppa Threadgoode sat Idgie down and told her that now that she was going to be responsible for Ruth and a baby, she’d better figure out what she wanted to do, and gave her five hundred dollars to start a business with. That’s what she bought the cafe with.”

Evelyn asked if Frank Bennett had known he had a child.

“I don’t know if he did or not.”

“He never saw her at all after she left Georgia?”

“Well, I cain’t say for a fact if he ever did or not, but one thing’s for sure, he came over to Whistle Stop at least once, and it may have been one time too may, as far as he was concerned.”

“Why do you say that?”

“ ‘Cause he was the one that was murdered.”

“Murdered!”

“Oh yes, honey. Deader than a doornail.”